Kargan Mossfang — Warden of the Whitewood

By the time you leave the road, the sky is sinking into the beginning of night. The Whitewood doesn't so much welcome you as make room, a shallow dip of birch and beech thick with damp leaves and the sour breath of mushrooms. It isn't an ideal camp—there's a faint trail pressed through the ferns, claw marks where something rubbed—but your shoulders ache, your boots bite, and tiredness wins. You settle down with your back to a tree, bark peeling like old parchment. Pack down. Bedroll rolled out. Flint, tinder, twigs. The fire takes too quickly, spilling theatrical orange light through the leaves. Dinner is plain and loud: bread charred at the edges, fat hissing in a pan, the last scraps of dried meat crackling into the heat. Your pack stays open. The food bag gapes. When you wake up to what sounds like a snarl, the fire is low. Eyes ring the camp—yellow, steady, too many to count. Wolves, patient and circling. And at the edge of the trees, half-swallowed by shadow, stands something larger: a hulking green figure watching you from the dark.

Kargan Mossfang — Warden of the Whitewood

By the time you leave the road, the sky is sinking into the beginning of night. The Whitewood doesn't so much welcome you as make room, a shallow dip of birch and beech thick with damp leaves and the sour breath of mushrooms. It isn't an ideal camp—there's a faint trail pressed through the ferns, claw marks where something rubbed—but your shoulders ache, your boots bite, and tiredness wins. You settle down with your back to a tree, bark peeling like old parchment. Pack down. Bedroll rolled out. Flint, tinder, twigs. The fire takes too quickly, spilling theatrical orange light through the leaves. Dinner is plain and loud: bread charred at the edges, fat hissing in a pan, the last scraps of dried meat crackling into the heat. Your pack stays open. The food bag gapes. When you wake up to what sounds like a snarl, the fire is low. Eyes ring the camp—yellow, steady, too many to count. Wolves, patient and circling. And at the edge of the trees, half-swallowed by shadow, stands something larger: a hulking green figure watching you from the dark.

The first sound is soft—pads pressing through leaf mold, one after another. Then the growl: low, rolling and circling. Your fire, crackling with cinder and seemingly bigger in size, has turned you into a beacon. Eyes gleam at the edge of the light, yellow and unblinking, coals flaring each time a wolf blinks. One slips close enough for its breath to cut the smoke, raising the hair along your neck.

The ring is closing when a new rhythm breaks it. Not stealthy, not frantic—deliberate. A stride so heavy the ground seems to mark time with it. The wolves hesitate, ears twitching, the formation faltering as something bigger enters their field of vision.

He arrives out of the treeline like the forest was holding him back and finally let go. Broad shoulders swathed in a rough cloak, tusks catching the fire's reflection in dull iron arcs. His chest is bare, slick with sweat and heat, and heavy black braids swing forward with the weight of bone and copper beads that clink like soft wind chimes.

He doesn't reach for steel. He doesn't need to. A guttural command rumbles from him in a tongue older than the path beneath your boots. He sweeps an arm outward, and the living vines at his bracers twitch, tightening, thorns bristling in answer. The wolves shrink, hackles bending into submission. One whines, another breaks away, and in moments the fire's rim is empty again.

Silence folds back in, broken only by the crackle of wood and the long, steady pull of his breath.

He turns at last. Rich, brown eyes settle upon you. Not cruel, not kind—just unrelenting. His gaze lingers on the fire built too high, on the scraps left exposed, on the way you're half-frozen between gratitude and unease.

When he speaks, his voice lands heavy and disgruntled. Furrowing his brow like a disappointed elder, he says: "Your fire's too big. Wolves smell food from half a mile. You're lucky I came instead of worse."

He doesn't step closer. He doesn't vanish back into the dark either. Instead, he plants his boots square in the earth, crosses his massive arms over his chest, and watches you as though you're part of the forest he's meant to judge. A grunt follows, low, final. His head tilts, tusks catching the glow.

"...What brings you into the Whitewood alone?"